How to KEEP or LOSE a customer in 15 seconds!

A wise mentor of mine once said, “the business is in the business”. He was right.

Your customer base is one of your most precious assets and the quality of the communications you have with them is critical to your ability to create #TrueLoyalty with your customers and keep them.

Many of the large organisations I work with – such as insurance, financial, utilities, etc – don’t get many opportunities to work one-on-one with their customers.

When these organisations communicate with their customers, the best ones understand they need to ensure the communications are designed to enrich and not undermine their relationship with their customer.

Whether the communication is a traditional point-in-time statement, informative letter, or something else – and regardless of whether it is delivered physically, digitally, by SMS or a phone call – the goal remains the same; to maximise the value and relevancy of each communication they have with the customer.

Smart organisations understand that every time they communicate with their customers it is an opportunity to show they value and know their customer.

Equally, they recognise the very real possibility of causing the customer to experience a sense of indifference if they bombard them with irrelevant messages.

The more you KNOW about your customers, the more you can tailor your communications, be more relevant and deepen your relationship with them.

Jan Carlzon became the very successful CEO of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS). He wrote one of the best leadership books for CEOs; Moments of Truth.

In his book he explained the situation at SAS, where they looked at the interactions between his company and their customers.  They saw that for their 10 million customers every year, on average, each of them had five interactions with SAS, and that these interactions lasted for, on average, 15 seconds.

He realised that regardless of all the backend hours, days, weeks and months spent on projects, management, manuals, policies, marketing and more, that what was most important were these 50 million 15 second interactions with their customers every year.  These 15 second “Moments of Truth”, where SAS employees had the opportunity to create (or recreate) the company in the eyes of the customer 50 million times a year.  Mr Carlzon knew that these “are the moments that ultimately determine whether SAS will succeed or fail”.

While every business has its own Moments of Truth, most remain blind or indifferent to these critical interactions with their customers.

Have you defined your own customer moments of truth?

To help you map Your Customer MOMENTS OF TRUTH we are happy to share one of our self-assessment tools.  Download the Your Customer MOMENTS OF TRUTH self-assessment below.

This self-assessment tool will help you understand how many interactions you have with your customers, the average time spent and what more you could be doing to increase the value to them at those times.

This is an incredibly valuable exercise that will help you quickly identify areas that can be enhanced and those that need to be eliminated.

Remember, customers aren’t kept or lost in days, weeks or months, it can happen in seconds!  Take a moment to closely examine all of your little moments that can make a big difference.

Claim your copy of the Your Customer MOMENTS OF TRUTH self-assessment below.

PRO TIP…
Complete Your Customer MOMENTS OF TRUTH and put it on your wall as a daily reminder of how you could be doing more with each interaction with your customers to kill indifference and reach a position of #TrueLoyalty.